Benjamin Balthaser

I dust this off every year or two

Sure, there’s also 400 years of European colonial violence behind it too; things still move according to conjunctures and limits: this isn’t something the US or Israel would have dared a decade ago

Israeli Official: Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei Was Killed, His Body Found Haaretz • LIVE الِبَكْرُ فَا عَتَدوا عَلِيْه

Rather than perceive the genocide in Gaza as a warning to Israel & the US about the limits of their power & global forbearance for their crimes, they seem to have interpreted as a sign that they can now get away with anything

it’s the language of a serial rapist. It is also the revival of a much older colonial discourse that assumes non-European peoples have a libidibal desire to be violently dominated

For many years, you have asked for America's help, but you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want, so let's see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach. This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass.

All empires are self-aggrandizing, but describing bombing hospitals and schools as “giving you what you want” is truly next level psychopathy

#notthepitchbot

that is one way to describe unprovoked murder

Humans of New York can often be sentimental claptrap. Yet to the project’s credit, they went to Iran about a decade ago & took a number of stunning portraits. An important reminder that we are bombing ppl and not a “regime” or other abstractions we use to avoid a sense of responsibility

White House officials believe 'the politics are a lot better' if Israel strikes Iran first As the administration mulls military action in Iran, officials argue it'd be best if Israel makes the first move.

The precise relationship btw US imperial interests and Israeli territorial expansion and regional hegemony is often complex and then, sometimes it’s v clear

An official letter from the Kansas Division of Vehicles dated February 23, 2026, with a redacted recipient address. The letter notifies the recipient that due to the enactment of Senate Bill 244, all Kansas driver's licenses and IDs must reflect the holder's sex at birth. It states that the recipient's current credential will become invalid immediately upon the law's publication on February 26, 2026, with no grace period. The recipient is directed to surrender their current ID to receive a new one matching their sex assigned at birth. The document concludes with instructions on how to appeal the notice if received in error, along with contact information for the department.

Kansas is sending letters to trans people telling them that their licenses will be revoked as of tomorrow and that they risk arrest for driving on a suspended license.

This is pure cruelty.

www.erininthemorning.com/p/kansas-sen...

Border Patrol released Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a 56 yo man, nearly blind with serious medical conditions, at "an old address & his family had since moved" in Buffalo, NY in the winter. "His family was not initially notified." He was found dead. @news4buffalo.bsky.social

www.wivb.com/news/local-n...

The weirdest thing is always the NYT headline, treating a Nuremberg Rally as tho it were a policy speech about economic production or trade

Revenge of the Nerds was Silicon Valley neo bro culture rendered as camp as against the older bro culture of Fordism.

Beyond Tucker Carlson’s long track record of odious & reactionary views, the danger of promoting his "anti Zionism" is that it implies Palestinian, Jewish, queer, working class, Black critical voices are not worth as much; their critiques are somehow either less relevant or perhaps just, old news.

That is, we need to read this as another shot at liberal jurisprudence since the new deal - that took civil liberties seriously and left economic reforms and policy to politicians

I think it’s all of a piece: new deal legal reform (Caroline Products footnote) drew a distinction btw economic policy and civil rights and liberties - this court is turning this upside down

SCOTUS: fascism is cool, but don’t you dare raise taxes on our iphones

Yes they are running on v thin margins

“If you want to read Toni Morrison go to a private college” Indiana governor Mitch Daniels once said.

It’s just called “privatization” — and there was nothing accidental about destroying public universities

Yes probably but why would you

ChatGPT, did ChatGPT write this?

Benjamin Balthaser (@blbalthaser) I listened to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's comments at the Munich Security Conference (it wasn't a speech as it seems to be reported on, but rather a roundtable w a pro-EU right-wing German politician f...

Some thoughts about AOC’s comments at the Munich Security Conference on the strengths and limits of popular progressive anti-imperialist thought in this conjuncture substack.com/@blbalthaser...

UnitedHealth uses AI model with 90% error rate to deny care, lawsuit alleges For the largest health insurer in the US, AI's error rate is like a feature, not a bug.

"why are you against progress" I yell confidently as my sloppily-implemented algorithms prematurely murder your grandma

RFK was not a mvt leader but a politician; as for King perhaps no single inheritor but among ppl who were organizing and mobilizing progressive Black communities Palestine solidarity I think emerged as commonsense

lol

Btw Jesse Jackson and Rustin I might who carried the torch fwd of King’s legacy?

Anti left politics?

Liberal progress and national continuity narratives are so weird. I just heard someone on NPR say Jesse Jackson’s politics were “ahead of their time” bc they “presciently looked to the kind of populism we see today…with Donald Trump”

Rev. Jackson’s Role in Arab American Empowerment — James Zogby Forty years ago, I was at an Arab American dinner event with Rev. Jesse Jackson when he leaned over and said to me, “I’m running for President and I want you to join my campaign staff.”  My immediate ...

A lot of ink has been spilled about MLK’s support for Israel. Jesse Jackson, King’s confident, was the first political figure to bring the Palestinian struggle to the center of the Democratic Party in the 1980s. One can only assume King would followed suit jameszogby.com/washingtonwa...

Why do I keep hearing “thats my purse; I don’t know you!”